Collecting social contact data in the context of disease transmission: Prospective and retrospective study designs

Rafael T. Mikolajczyk, Mirjam Kretzschmar*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Patterns of direct contacts between people ultimately determine the transmission rate for airborne pathogens like influenza; therefore, data regarding contact behaviour are essential for designing infectious disease control. In order to collect reliable data about social contacts, decisions about the survey methodology have to be made. A series of relevant surveys was conducted in 2003-2006 among university students in Bielefeld, Germany. Each survey focussed on specific methodological questions related to the number of contacts encountered during 1 day. In this study, we report on the analysis of different survey designs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)127-135
Number of pages9
JournalSocial Networks
Volume30
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2008

Keywords

  • Airborne infectious diseases
  • Social contacts
  • Survey methodology

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